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Æthelred of Wessex
'Æthelred I''' (Old English: Æþelræd, sometimes rendered as Ethelred, "noble counsel"; According to Sean Miller's DNB article on Æthelred, he was probably a year or so older than Alfred – 871) was titular King of Wessex from 865 to 871. He was the fourth son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. He succeeded his brother, Æthelberht (Ethelbert), as King of Wessex and Kent in 865.Johnson, pp. 49. Early life In 853 his younger brother Alfred went to Rome, and according to contemporary references in the Liber Vitae of San Salvatore, Brescia, Æthelred accompanied him.[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8921/39264?docPos=1 Janet L. Nelson, Æthelwulf, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004] He first witnessed his father's charters as an Ætheling in 854, and kept this title until he succeeded to the throne in 865. He may have acted as an underking as early as 862, and in 862 and 863 he issued charters as King of the West Saxons. This must have been as deputy or in the absence of his elder brother, King Æthelberht, as there is no record of conflict between them and he continued to witness his brother's charters as a king's son in 864.Abels, p. 50 Reign In the same year as Æthelred's succession as king, a great Viking army arrived in England, and within five years they had destroyed two of the principal English kingdoms, Northumbria and East Anglia. In 868 Æthelred's brother-in-law, Burgred king of Mercia, appealed to him for help against the Vikings. Æthelred and his brother, the future Alfred the Great, led a West Saxon army to Nottingham, but there was no decisive battle, and Burgred bought off the Vikings. In 874 the Vikings defeated Burgred and drove him into exile.[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4018/?back=,8913 S. E. Kelly, Burgred, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004] In 870 the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, and on 4 January 871 at the Battle of Reading, Æthelred suffered a heavy defeat.Chisholm, p. 290. Although he was able to re-form his army in time to win a victory at the Battle of Ashdown,Lyon, pp. 20. he suffered further defeats on 22 January at Basing,Stephen, pp. 890. and 22 March at Meretun. Adbication, Crown Prince and death In about 867, Æthelred effectively established a common currency between Wessex and Mercia by adopting the Mercian type of lunette penny, and coins minted exclusively at London and Canterbury then circulated in the two kingdoms.Geoffrey Hindley, A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons, Robinson, London, 2006, p. 206 Æthelred's begin King was weak, so in mean time. On 23 April of 848, Æthelred abdicated and favor his brother, Andwearde on the throne. After Andwearde become King, Æthelred become the Crown Prince. Æthelred died shortly after Easter (15 April) 871,Keynes & Lapidge, p. 80 and is buried at Wimborne Minster in Dorset.Stephen, pp. 27. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Alfred the Great. Family Æthelred's wife was probably called Wulfthryth. A charter of 868 refers to Wulfthryth regina (queen). It was rare in ninth century Wessex for the king's wife to be given the title queen, and it is only definitely known to have been given to Æthelwulf's second wife, Judith of Flanders.Keynes & Lapidge, pp. 71, 235 Historians Barbara YorkeBarbara Yorke, Edward as Ætheling, in N. J. Higham & D. H. Hill eds., Edward the Elder, p. 31 and Pauline Stafford,Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, Blackwell, 1997, p. 324 and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, treat the charter as showing that Wulfthryth was Æthelred's queen. She might have been the daughterFoot, p. xv or sister of Ealdorman Wulfhere of Wiltshire, who forfeited his lands charged with deserting King Alfred for the Danes in about 878.Kirby, p. 177 However, Sean Miller in his Oxford Online DNB article on Æthelred does not mention her.[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8913?docPos=2 Sean Miller, Æthelred I, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004] Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge in the notes to their 1983 edition of Asser's Life of King Alfred the Great refer to a "mysterious 'Wulfthryth regina'",Keynes & Lapidge, p. 235 but Keynes stated in 1994 that she was "presumably the wife of King Æthelred".Keynes, "West Saxon Charters", p. 1130, n. 4 Æthelred had two known sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. Æthelwold disputed the throne with Edward the Elder after Alfred's death in 899. Æthelred's descendants include the tenth-century historian, Æthelweard, and Æthelnoth, an eleventh-century Archbishop of Canterbury. See also * House of Wessex family tree * List of monarchs of Kent * Chronology of Kentish Kings * Burial places of British royalty Notes Citations References * * * * * * * * * * * * * External links * Category:West Saxon monarchs Category:840s births Category:871 deaths Category:9th-century English monarchs Category:Kentish monarchs Category:House of Wessex Category:Burials at Wimborne Minster (church)